


Missing Moments

by ficlicious



Series: Aftermath [8]
Category: Ant-Man (Movies), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Incredible Hulk (2008), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath Verse, F/M, Family Drama, Fluff, Future Ficlet, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Social Media, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-01-15 07:06:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12316179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficlicious/pseuds/ficlicious
Summary: A collection of (likely) out of order fics prompted by requests via Tumblr to fill in missing moments in my main Aftermath timeline. Tags to be updated with each new chapter added.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> silentsamemu asked for this prompt: "Could I ask how Laura met the bots?"
> 
> This takes place after Strays, but before the main events of The Swear Jar. 

 

The first time Cooper disappears for an entire day, Laura panics. No matter how often she reminds herself that they’re safe, they’re no longer fugitives in the United States, the year in Wakanda still weighs heavily on her mind, lingers in her dreams. She still wakes up sometimes in a cold sweat, and has to shake the feeling that if she turns around, goes down the hall and checks each of the doors behind which her children sleep, she’ll find only empty space, empty beds, instead of her babies.

The panic is easy to contain at first. She’s not hysterical by nature. She comes from practical stock, problem-solving stock. Take one step, then another. Work the problem at hand, not the myriad possible problems that might lie in the future. Running around like she’s lost her head will not find her son, so she allows herself five breaths to feel the fear, and then firmly puts it aside, finds her shoes, and leaves her family’s apartments to start looking for Cooper. 

\----

The panic isn’t so easy to contain two hours later, when she’s all but scoured the compound top to bottom and still hasn’t turned up so much as a hair of Cooper Francis Barton. The panic is, in fact, having a much easier time of driving her on hurrying feet and quickening breath towards the archery range, where she expects to find Clint. 

Unless he’s disappeared into thin air too. 

That thought doesn’t help the panic. 

Clint is right where she thought he’d be, and his warm, happy smile at seeing her approach quickly shifts to a frown of confusion and concern as she halts in front of him. “Hey,” he says, soft and gentle, sets his bow down to reach out and take her by the shoulders, rubbing her biceps soothingly. “What’s wrong?”

Her head swims as she takes a deep breath, oxygen rush making her momentarily dizzy, but Clint keeps her from swaying too much. “I can’t find Cooper,” she says while the spots are clearing out of her eyes. “Lila is with Cassie, and Nat stole Nathan this morning, but I don’t know where Cooper is.”

It relieves her to see how fast the concern clears from Clint’s expression, because that means he knows there’s nothing to worry about. “Cooper’s with Tony,” he says. “Has been since this morning. Cooper wanted to see where Tony worked, so they came to me after breakfast. I told them it was fine.” The smile slips a little and his head tilts when she does sag, apparently misreading her relief for upset. “Was that not okay?”

“No,” she says, hastily shaking her head. “No, he’s safe with Tony. I just...” She trails off, swallows and closes her eyes. 

Clint pulls her into a hug, more of an embrace, and she leans into his reassuring warmth. “You want to go make sure?” he asks gently, kisses her temple. 

She makes a face into his shoulder. “I’m being ridiculous,” she mutters. 

“Naw,” he replies, moves her so he can see her face and tucks her hair behind her ear. “I put you through a lot, and that took a toll. It’s going to take time for all that to go away.” At least he doesn’t apologize this time; he’s getting better at that too. “C’mon,” he says, kisses her forehead, and slides his arm around her shoulders. “It’s almost time to drag Tony out of the workshop and remind him he needs to eat sometime this week anyway.”

\----- 

“Shit,” Tony says, wide-eyed as he stares at them both, and Laura’s faintly amused that his first instinct is to jingle around in his pocket for a quarter, which she holds her hand out to take. She doesn’t think he’s even noticed he’s done it yet. “I didn’t think to leave a note for you, Laura.”

“It’s fine, Tony,” she says, before he can start apologizing in more depth. He’s another one that needs to stop kicking himself black and blue. He will, if Laura has anything to say about that. She peers past, glancing around. “I just wanted to check and make sure Cooper hasn’t corrupted you into world domination.”

Tony’s smirk is wry. “Not one of my sins, unless you count dominating energy and communications across the globe. He’s in the bot lab, in the back. I’ll get him.”

“No no. Just...” She sighs and looks up at him with a wry smile. “Is it okay if I come in, just for a minute?”

Tony gives her an odd look, surprise, and glances to Clint before looking back at her. “Of course it is,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. 

“Her sin is obsessive politeness,” Clint says, and oofs at the elbow she nudges into his ribs. “What? It’s true.”

“It’s not polite to point it out,” she says primly. “Thank you, Tony. I’ll just be a second.”

“Stay as long as you like,” he replies, still with that baffled tone. As she walks away, she hears Tony add, in an undertone to Clint, “You know you’re both welcome anywhere, right?”

“Laura never assumes anything, dumbass,” comes Clint’s easy, fond reply, “so maybe try telling her that. Normal people use words to convey their intentions. I know it’s not a technique you’re familiar with, but might be worth a shot?”

“... I hate you so much, Katniss.”

“Mutual, Tin Man.”

Laura smiles and shakes her head. At least they’ve finally shaken the last of the tension between them. She reminds herself to tell Cooper he can finally dig the box of toy cars out from under his bed, where she told him to hide them. 

Cooper’s got his back to the stairs, and two ... rover-looking machines on either side. They’re all focused on the work table in front of them, busily chirping and beeping and chattering between themselves. Though she’d only heard of the bots in passing, she finds herself completely unsurprised to discover them displaying personalities of their own. 

The last remnants of the irrational fear dissipates when he glances over his shoulder to the robot on his left to take the tool it’s offering him, catches sight of her, and turns with a smile. 

“Hey Mom,” he says. “What’re you doing here?”

Cooper’s at a touchy age, and Laura’s still trying to get a feel for how much motherly affection he minds her showing. She settles for ruffling his hair with a hand, smiling down at him. “Came to get you and Tony for lunch,” she says. “I thought we’d go into town. There’s a diner there I keep meaning to try. What do you think?”

Cooper looks back at the table, back at her, then down at his feet before back up. “Mom... can we do that another time? Me and Tony are doing a project and I kinda wanna finish it.”

She arches an eyebrow. “You know, last week, you were badgering your father and I to take you into town so you could get away from the compound for awhile.”

“That was before Tony asked if I wanted to learn how to be an engineer, Mom,” Cooper replies, impatiently, and Laura bites back a smile. “Please? Can I stay?”

She eyes him for a moment, until he’s shifting from foot to foot, and then decides to be merciful. “If you tell me what you’re working on.”

Cooper eyes her right back, as if sizing her up. “How do I know you’re not a corporate spy looking to steal my ideas?”

“Corporate spies don’t pay your allowance, brat.” She reaches out to ruffle his hair again. “I’m your mom, not an infiltrator.”

“That’s the perfect cover,” he says, squinting at her. “No one ever expects their moms.”

She laughs, while making a mental note to herself to talk to Clint about how many spy thrillers he watches with the kids, even if he claims to only do it so he can point out to the kids all the things they’re doing wrong. “C’mon. What are you working on?”

“I,” he says, and steps to the side to turn back to the table to show her, “am learning how to be an engineer from Tony. He made these guys, and they’re super helpful. Thats what I want to do too. And Tony’s the best. He says I’ll get into MIT no sweat, if that’s what I want. But I don’t want to wait for college, so...” He takes a deep breath and lets it out fast, in a huff that sets his shoulders. “I’m making a bot like Dum-E and U.”

Her eyebrow goes up again. “Dum-E and U? Those are their names?”

Cooper nods, points at the one on the left. “That’s U. He’s kinda shy, so don’t be offended if he doesn’t look at you or anything. He holds the cameras and makes sure Tony’s experiments are properly documented. And this,” he says, patting the other bot on the flat top of its... head, she guesses. “This is Dum-E. Tony said he made him when he wasn’t much older than me, in his Dad’s workshop. He’s had him a long time. He’s not really smart, not like FRIDAY, but he’s great at helping. And he saved Tony’s life a couple times.”

She doesn’t want to accuse her son of overexaggerating things, but she’s seen the machines Tony creates, and this one doesn’t look remotely advanced to be able to do complex things like that. “He did, did he?”

“Yup! A couple of times, Tony caught on fire. Hazard of innovation, he says. Dum-E used the fire extinguisher in plenty of time, and Tony says all those things really don’t count, but I think they do.”

“I see.”

“And,” he adds offhandedly, “when Mr. Stane stole Tony’s arc reactor out of his chest, Dum-E got him the old one before his heart stopped beating. And even Tony says that counts as saving his life. Tony underexaggerates a lot of those kinds of things, so I think it should count two or three more times.”

Her breath catches and her spine goes cold at the implications. Out of all the stories she’s heard about the various Avengers, she’s definitely never heard that one. “I think you’re right,” she says when she can speak again. “And if Dum-E hadn’t done that, we wouldn’t have Tony now.” 

Dum-E chirps inquisitively at her, and its head-analogue tilts slightly as she leans over him. “Thank you,” she breathes and, though she wants to throw her arms around the clunky metal body and hug the hell out of it, she doesn’t want Cooper to give her that exasperated look that tells her he thinks she’s being weird either. So she settles for dropping a light kiss to the top of its head, just above the round lens. “I appreciate it a lot.”

Dum-E chirps again, a happy sound, and spins on its wheels. 

“I know it was a long time ago,” Cooper says, “but I wanted to say thank you to them, so I’m making them a little brother.” He hands her his tablet, which is currently displaying surprisingly professional-looking schematics. “Tony helped me draw them, but I’m still just a kid, so I shouldn’t feel bad about that, he says. I gotta come up with the name myself. And I don’t want it to be dumb. It’s harder than it looks.”

“I named four kids, kiddo,” she says with a smirk. “Tell me about it.” She scrolls slowly through the pages, marvelling a little at the miracle Tony in their lives continues to feel like. “Well, that is definitely a robot.”

“Oh my god!” Cooper blinks, and then his whole face lights up. “Mom! You did it! You did it!”

Her turn to blink and stare. “What did I do?”

Instead of answering her, Cooper bounds past her and down the half-flight of stairs, running for the front. She follows behind in confusion, tablet still in her hands, as he calls, “Tony! Tony! Mom did it! She said it was definitely a robot! And since its my first one...”

Tony turns from his conversation with Clint, who’s looking just as lost as she is, but Tony just grins and holds out a fist which Cooper obligingly bumps. “1-DAR. Nicely done, science kid. Don’t forget to update the files with the name. Rule 9: write the little things down, because you have no idea how fast they’ll disappear from your head.”

“Gotcha.” Cooper nods solemnly, then turns back to her and holds out his hand. “Thanks so much, Mom. Can I have my tablet back? I gotta update my files.”

“Sure,” she says, bemused, and hands it back. “You boys look busy, so I’ll bring lunch down to you in a bit. Sound good?”

To her surprise, Cooper throws his arms around her waist and hugs her tightly. “You’re the best, Mom! I’m going back to the bot lab, Tony. You coming?”

“Go on without me, I’ll be there in a minute. Gotta talk to your parents a sec.” When Cooper’s back at the top of the stairs, Tony turns back to them with a grimace. “I should have left you a note, Laura. Or come ask you myself. I--”

“Shut up, Tony,” Laura says and he goes shock-still when she just hugs him impulsively. “He’s happy here and we trust you. A note’s fine. Stick it on the fridge. It’s where our family puts things we need each other to see. He can be in here sunup to sundown as far as I care. Just let us know, is all.” She pulls away from him before she starts to cry and smiles up at his absolutely baffled, slightly terrified face. “What do you want for lunch? I’ll bring it down for you.”

“Whatever’s fine, Laura. Don’t want to be a bother.” He withers a little under her steady gaze. “I like chicken club sandwiches,” he mutters, eyes darting to the side. “I was gonna make myself one later with the leftovers from dinner the other day.”

“I got it,” she says with another smile, holds his gaze long enough that he starts shifting uncomfortably. That’s when she turns back to Clint, who’s looking highly amused and smug at her. “Let’s leave the boys to their tinkering.” 

“Talk to you later, Tony,” Clint says, glancing over her shoulder with another sideways smile. “See you when you get home.”

“Sure,” Tony says, still uncertain, and sees them out the door. 

Clint walks with her in silence for a few minutes as they head home, but she can  _feel_ him swelling with amusement and smugness. “So,” he finally says, just as they’re leaving the workshop and lab areas to wait for the elevator. “I couldn’t help but notice...”

“Shut up, Barton,” she says firmly. “That’s not a conversation I want to have right now. I’m still thinking.”

He’s still smug and smirking, the prick, as he shrugs broadly. “All I’m saying is...”

“I know what you’re saying.” She sighs and rubs her forehead, then scrubs her face. “Did you know one of his bots saved his life?”

He arches an eyebrow. “Yes. You didn’t?”

“No.” She shakes her head. “He makes the most amazing things and doesn’t take credit for any of it. More to the point, he’s teaching Cooper how to do that and only worries that we’ll be mad at him.” She looks at Clint, and just like that, her mind’s made up. “He’s a Barton,” she declares. “He’s ours.”

“I know he is. Don’t worry, sweetheart,” Clint says, snags her around the neck and pulls her in to kiss her forehead. “We’ll fix him up. You’re really good at that. Just look at how you put me back together.”

Weight she didn’t even know she was carrying is abruptly gone. “You’re still a work in progress, Barton,” she says. “I don’t think there’s ever gonna be any fixing you.”

“Probably not,” he agrees, and holds his arm out across the opening elevator doors to let her step in first. “But you love me just like I am.”

“Probably,” she admits with a soft laugh as the doors close behind them. “We all have our incurable faults.”

\-----

Tony and Cooper barely notice her coming in a short while later, and she leaves the tray with their sandwiches and drinks on an empty counter nearby. Tony thanks her distractedly, echoed a second later by Cooper, and they go back to their arcane technobabble. She smiles fondly at them, the two heads so close together, and feels blessed all over again.

As she’s moving through the main workshop on her way out, she sees Dum-E tidying up a workspace off to the side. She glances over her shoulder, but neither of her boys are paying attention to her. 

It’s impulsive, but she steps into the work area, and stops beside Dum-E, who twists his lens around to look at her and beeps curiously. “Thank you again,” she says, far more heartfelt than when Cooper had been there, and this time does hug the bot. “He wouldn’t be here if not for you, so thank you.”

Dum-E chirps again and the shaft of his upper body rests gently on her shoulder, like he’s hugging her back. He beeps again, happy and noisome, but she knows without understanding a single sound that he’s saying  _you’re welcome._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one comes from a random late-night enabling by hikagekitsune and megara1986 on Tumblr. 
> 
> Original post with visual prompt and my own damn fault in this found here.
> 
> Chapter takes place approximately 6 years in the future of the current Aftermath happenings. No spoilers included.

Lila Barton-Stark at fifteen is hell on wheels, and gives Tony near-heart attacks on a nigh-daily basis. Growing up in the extended Avengers family has made her headstrong, fearless, and utterly disregarding of Tony’s poor nerves. If she’s not cajoling Uncle Jim into helping her get her pilot’s license, she’s begging for her own bow, or Widow’s Bites, or Iron Man suit, and Tony’s hair would be shockingly white from stress and fear if he didn’t religiously dye out every single bleach-pale strand he found on his head.

He has only himself to blame. 

Well, no. That’s a filthy lie. He has Clint to blame too. Clint had been the genetic donor, and his DNA is full of spite and defiance that had clearly overwhelmed the more sensible traits Laura’s genes had no doubt valiantly tried to bestow on the girl. Cooper, it seemed, had gotten the lion’s share of Laura’s common sense, and Lila had gotten nearly all of Clint and Tony’s _laissez-faire_ attitude towards personal safety combined. 

Nothing in his life has ever come close to preparing Tony for his strong-willed, effervescent daughter, and most days, he’s content to just marvel at the gift his children have been. But on days like this, flying down the halls of the compound as fast as his definitely-too-old-for-this-shit ass can move in a flurry of panic and enraged fear, Clint hard on his heels and the Langs right behind him, he wonders if this is karmic payback for the utter shithead he’d been to his parents as a teenager. 

He’s going to make a point of apologizing profusely to his mother next time he visits the tomb to freshen up her flowers. 

\-----

By the time they get to the mall, it’s all over, and the only thing left for Tony to do is keep Clint from murdering his older brother, Barney, in front of the cops. 

“Breathe, sweetheart,” he murmurs directly into Clint’s ear, gauntleted hands locked tight and firm on his husband’s rock-hard and wound-spring taut shoulders. It’s just as much for his benefit as it is Clint’s; focusing on keeping Clint from dropping Trickshot like so many sacks of rotting turds helps to keep Tony from dropping Trickshot like so many sacks of rotting turds.

“I am breathing,” Clint says, in a casually friendly tone that does nothing to belie the death glare he’s got trained on Barney, tangled with Peter’s web fluid, scorched by Cassie’s stinger-bolts, and bearing the signs of someone with an absolutely brutal right hook having punched him in the eye. “I will continue to breathe until Barney’s buried in an unmarked grave somewhere no one looks too hard into suspicious deaths.”

“I’ll get you in,” Scott says, just as casually, eyes just as locked with a promise of utter violence on the elder Barton. “I can spare a dose of Pym particles or two, and I’ve got a spare suit.”

“I knew I liked you, Lang,” Clint says with a dangerous sort of glee. “You’re my favorite Avenger now.”

“Why’re you forcing me to be the voice of reason?” Tony carefully loosens his grip a few degrees, testing to see if Clint bolts the second he’s got freedom. “Goddammit, I’m supposed to be the no-fucks-given asshole who never thinks about consequences. Do not make me be the fucking adult here.”

Hope appraises them all with a long, assessing look, and shakes her head as she shucks her gloves. “You three stand there and glower like assholes at the bad guy,” she says, half in amusement and half in disgust. “I’m going to go see how our kids are doing, and find out what the hell happened.”

“I take it back,” Tony says after a moment, watching Hope steamroll efficiently through the gaggle of uniforms surrounding their children. “She’s definitely the adult.” And a second later, he has to tighten his grip again as Clint tries to eel out of his clutches while he’s distracted. “That still doesn’t mean you get to murder your brother, sweetheart. Laura’d kill you, then me, if we end up in the Raft again.”

“Worth it,” Clint hisses, but relents and lets Tony turn him towards the pack of kids instead. 

\----

“It’s Lila’s fault,” Nathan gravely assures his fathers, shooting a dirty look at his very defiantly-defensive older sister sitting with her arms sullenly crossed over her chest. “She kept making fun of Uncle Barney on Facebook.”

“Uncle Barney is a tool,” she says darkly, and the stubbornness sets just a little bit more firmly in her jawline. “How was I supposed to know he’d get all pissy and show up here?”

Clint’s got a constipated look on his face, and Tony’s not sure if it’s because he’s restraining himself from yelling at the top of his lungs, or because he’s restraining himself from laughing until he hurts himself. Or both. It’s probably both. 

_“Why,”_ Clint says, after a long moment of heroically keeping his expression steady, “are you talking to your Uncle Barney on Facebook?”

Lila’s head goes down, and her forehead furrows. “He’s family, Dad. Jesus. I can’t have family on Facebook now?”

Tony finds himself reaching for patience and calm. Neither seem to want to be found, no matter how hard he roots around looking for them. “You are allowed to have family on Facebook,” he says, when he’s sure he can speak semi-intelligibly himself. “I don’t understand why you want _that_ family on Facebook. You are _aware_ he’s a goddamn criminal, right? And not in the fun way. Uncle Barney isn’t gonna teach you how to pick locks and how to hide a frightening number of weapons in your underwear like your Aunt Natasha.”

“I know, Papa!” Lila snaps, and her shoulders hunch. “I’m not a fucking idiot.”

“Swear jar,” Nathan mutters snidely, and sticks his tongue out when Lila glares at him.

Clint lowers his head into his hands, rubs the bridge of his nose with a forefinger and thumb. “Why,” he says plaintively, “are you talking to your Uncle Barney on Facebook, Lila?”

“Because,” Lila mutters, huffs a sigh of extreme teenage irritability that makes Tony want to find the nearest brick wall and beat his head against it. “Someone had to do it.”

There’s a vein pounding a rhythm in his temple. Tony can feel it. Interestingly, it seems to be synchronized with the vein pounding visibly above Clint’s temple. “Someone had to do _what?”_

Mutinously, Lila shakes her head and refuses to say anything further, no matter what Tony and Clint threaten to punish her with. In the end, they’re reduced to deciding to wait until Maggie and Laura can weigh in to deal with whatever the hell had happened and why it had happened. It isn’t until much, much later, when online privileges have been revoked and house arrest has been issued and FRIDAY tasked with warden duties and Lila’s inexplicably broken fingers taped up before they’d all been banished to their rooms that the truth comes to light. 

“Apparently,” Laura says as she goes through the moisturizing part of her nightly routine as Clint and Tony turn the bedsheets down, “Barney had been messaging me for some time.”

Tony pauses, parses, shoots her an arched eyebrow of disbelief. “And you didn’t know?”

Laura shrugs with a wry smile as she applies the lotion to her neck and shoulders, meeting his eyes in the mirror. “I’m not on it all that often,” she says simply, recaps the bottle and cleans her hands on a towel. “I might have left it open last time I was, and that’s how Lila got onto my account.”

Clint’s looking murderous again, and Tony wonders if the Raft is far enough to keep Barney safe. Ridiculous question, really. The answer is no, because even if Clint weren’t resourceful as fuck, Tony has a lot of resources to throw at him. “I can just imagine the shit he’d say to you,” Clint mutters, and then the rest seems to catch up to him, because his expression goes an impossible degree more homicidal. “Wait, he said that shit to our _fifteen year old daughter.”_

“Said fifteen year old daughter more than held her own,” Laura replies placidly. “I’m actually quite proud of her,” Laura continues, and stands to hang her robe on the hook beside her vanity. “In an abstract way, I mean. She shouldn’t have been on my account and she shouldn’t have engaged Barney’s bullshit, but she cut him to pieces, told him exactly where to shove it, and I’m proud of her for that.” She sighs, turns to stare at the two of them with a rueful shake of her head. “She takes after her father a little too much in the mouthy department, I think.”

“Agreed,” Tony says at the same time Clint does, and they share a long, assessing, accusing look. Laura laughs at them both, and refuses to tell them which one she meant.

**Author's Note:**

> Got a moment you'd like to see happen? Head over to [my Tumblr](http://allthemarvelousrage.tumblr.com/) and ask for it.


End file.
